Six of the grossest details of pregnancy that you didn’t want to know…

Before I fell pregnant these were my assumptions about birth and pregnancy.

You get a big round, swollen tummy; You feel baby move and groove inside you; You crave stupid foods like pickles with peanut butter and order two meals for yourself when out; You get porno sized boobies; Your skin glows; You might get morning sickness; Your water breaks in a public place and you look as if you’ve just wet your pants; You huff, puff and push through your labour, legs spread, lying on your back and then your baby comes out crying and a bit gooey; And you experience an overwhelming flood of emotion and love instantly!

Thats about what I was prepared for.

Here’s what I wasn’t prepared for.

 

FREEZING SANITARY PADS

“Invest in some sanitary pads, saturate them with witch hazel and store them in the freezer” she said. You’re going to need them” she said

“What on earth…?”

I hadn’t even thought about it. I mean, I get it that some (most) women tear during pregnancy but I hadn’t actually thought about the aftermath. You know, coming home and sitting down all bruised and bashed down there. Apparently it’s a really hard and painful thing to do and wearing frozen panties soothes it.

Holy shit, lucky my poor vagina couldn’t hear this horrid conversation.

There is so much focus on the birth and birthing plan (what a joke) itself that I don’t really think we think about anything else. So yeah, there I was preparing for my birth at the kitchen bench, drowning pads in witch hazel and stocking up the freezer.

“No honey, that’s not left-overs, that’s my frozen pads. Don’t eat them”

I’m actually disappointed that I never ended up having to wear them. I was quite curious as to how they were going to feel.

They’re still in my freezer.

 

PERINEAL MASSAGE

I won’t go into too much detail here. You can google it if you’re intrigued enough because a perineal massage is NOTHING like a massage. It’s nothing like relaxing with the sweet smells of essential oils being rubbed into your body whilst listening to soft flutes and birds chirping over cascading water.

No it’s more like self mutilation. Down there.

Preparing yourself for the expansion of your you-know-what. Getting it ready. Stretching and pulling on it on the floor of your shower.

Have fun with that.

 

CATCHING COLOSTRUM

For those that don’t know what colostrum is, it is the very first liquids that ooze from your boobies before your milk comes in. Its a super food for your bubby and it’s thick like honey.

During one of our midwife’s visit she told me to invest in some syringes and try to suck out some colostrum before bubba was born.

Whaaaaaat the?

Who knew I could milk my boobies even before bubba was born? I didn’t.

She said that it is like liquid gold and it’s always good to have a stash of this in the freezer. I didn’t really understand why I should be doing this but I did everything I was told, so I attempted it… many times.

My midwife, Helen, demonstrated how I should be doing this. I should gently massage my boob and kneed it like a soft dough, always rolling toward the nipple and then a golden honey liquid would slowly drip out.

But it never bloody did. No matter how much I massaged, manipulated and contorted my breasts, I got nothin’.

I felt the mother’s guilt everyone talks about before I even became a mother. Bloody hell! Anxiety started to tickle its way up my oesophagus. I’m already a bad mother!

I became so obsessed about catching colostrum that every shower I had, there I was, syringe in one hand and the other kneading and pulling away at my chest, milking myself like a friggin cow.

My poor boobs.

 

This went on for weeks before I gave up. A friend of mine was a master at it. She used to fill her syringes like a mofo. She told me she had 3 stored in the freezer ready to go. Pow! I was so envious of her boobs. What the bloody hell was I doing wrong?

And then one afternoon when I was washing my hands in the bathroom I had to do a double take in the mirror as I looked down at my shirt to find two little wet spots on my boobs.

Woo-bloody-hoo. Colostrum!

HAIR LOSS

This one terrifies me and I’m still waiting for it to happen. I have really thin hair already so hearing that I’m going to go through extreme hair loss makes me feels sick to my stomach.

During pregnancy, because of some oestrogen hormonal reason, your hair stops falling out. Because you know, we lose up to 100 hairs a day apparently. But not when you’re pregnant. No, those little hair follicles dig deep into your skull and bury themselves there. So that means that instead of losing those 100 hairs, you keep em. And your hair gets more luscious and more luxurious by the day and by the end of 9 months you’re like totally L’oreal hair commercial worthy.

My pony tail went from a heart breaking 3 looped hair tie wrap to a dream come true, 2 loop wrap around. Winning!

My Mumma bird friends had warned me that it falls out in chunks. My sister in law, Georgia said at 3 months she was pulling it out by the handful in the shower. Just the thought of that happening to me makes me want to cry. I’m now 4 months post-birth and I’ve still got my thick hair. I’m hoping I’m one of the lucky ones that actually keeps their hair. Everytime I comb my fingers through my conditioned hair I dread what I’m going to find woven through my fingers though. And I keep a mean eye on the drain too.

 

LINEAR NEGRA

In Latin that translates to ‘Line Black’. Now flip those two words around into English and it reads ‘Black Line’

A girlfriend of mine was visiting one night when I was about 7 or 8 months pregnant. She asked me if I had my ‘linear negra’. Stumped, I look at her and asked her to repeat herself. ‘Linear Negra. That big black line pregnant woman get on their stomach’. That was the first I’d heard of it. I lifted up my shirt and we examined my guts. No line! “Oh, you’re one of the lucky ones. You probably won’t get it now that your so far along’ I pulled my shirt down and didn’t think much more of it.

But the very next morning when I was showering myself I was curious about this ‘linear negra’ thing and I looked down at my swollen belly again and what do you know. Linear bloody Negra. A big, dark, vertical strip, right down the centre of my stomach. How bizarre. Exactly what is the purpose of this ridiculous line?

Fact is, there is no purpose. Its something to do with those generous hormones spiking our pregnant systems. Not only do they make you a blubbering, soggy, crazy mess, they also make your skin all hyper pigmented. And the more I researched it, the more ridiculous it seemed. Heres a fun fun old wives’ tail I found: If it runs only up to your navel, you’re having a girl – but if it runs past your belly button to up near your ribs, it’s a boy. 

That wives tail is exactly that. A tail. Cause I had a girl and mine ran all the way up to my neck. And then those generous hormones gave me skin tags. Gross! Another hormonal thing apparently. Hundreds of teeny tiny, nasty skin tags all over my neck. Filth. Absolute filth. There were way too many to pick off so I just had to suck it up, except it and hope they disappeared after birth. After all, it’s worth it!

 

THE SHOW

Now this one is the grossest.

During our first meetings at home, my midwife kept referring to the passing of ‘the show’ and I just kept nodding my head and repeating “ah huh, yep, uh huh” like I knew exactly what she was talking about. When she left our house I proceeded to visit Dr Google to ask him.

Holy moly what is that?  Yuk, thats what it is.

For those of you who are not completely informed about giving birth, your ‘show’ is also known as your mucous plug. Ew huh? Two words your vagina does not want to hear.

Mucous and Plug. ‘Show’ is a much nicer word for it.

You can pass your ‘show’ before or during your labour. You can pass your ‘show’ days before you start to go into labour or you pass it during labour. It’s a good sign that things are about to get serious down there.

In the lead up to Little Birdy’s arrival, there were moments when I thought I had passed my ‘show’. There were many occasions where I closely examined my underpants on the loo thinking I had passed it. A little speck of something unfamiliar and I would be pants down running through the house yelling out for Lachie. “Look, look, ‘The Show’.I think this is it. Oh my god, it’s going to happen tonight for sure”.

But the contractions never came. Nothing happened those nights. I’d repeat this for days on end in the lead up to our due date. It became a regular occurrence, me running from the toilet with my pants down, screaming out to Lach “This one, look at this one, this is it for real…”

Never was though.. I didn’t really have any idea how big or small the ‘show’ would be until I was in actual pants down labor at the hospital.

Then I saw how big this ‘show’ thing is.

In between contractions I had a sudden white hot urge to be completely naked; furiously and dramatically ripping down my underpants I was overcome with horror to what lay awaiting me in the crotch of my panties. Snapping my head up I remember yelling out in pure fear and shock “Ohhhh my god, what is that? Is that my baby in my pants?” It looked like Maggie Beer had dumped her red wine jelly verjuice in my jocks.

Lach raced over in panic and yanked the jelly jocks out of my hand and took them to the bathroom, where under the light he closely examined the contents. I saw relief and pure disgust sweep across face as the reality hit him. He slopped it into the toilet.

‘Splosh’.

It’s ok babe, that was the show.